offendere

Forms

offendere (first-person singular present offèndo, first-person singular past historic offési, past participle offéso, auxiliary avére)^[1] Old forms include Old Italian ofendere, Old Italian onfendere and Old Italian affendere, with the past participles offenduto, offenso and offiso.^[2] The old participle offenso is now obsolete.^[3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin offendō (“to strike against; to harm; to offend”), a compound of ob- (“against”) and -fendō (“to strike”), a verb found only in compounds such as dēfendō, the source of difendere.^[5][6][7][1] offesa and offeso go back to its past participle offēnsus.^[5][6]

The Latin verb lives on in Old French offendre (today French offenser), Occitan offendre, Spanish ofender and Portuguese ofender.^[6]

-fendō comes from Proto-Indo-European *gʷʰen- (“to strike, to kill”), extended with a dental, and is related to Ancient Greek θείνω (theínō, “to strike”), Hittite kuenzi (“kills”) and Old Irish gonaid (“wounds, kills”).^[7][6][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELI finds the forms t'onfende and t'ài onfenduo in the northern Italian poet Uguccione da Lodi, about 1200.^[5] In Tuscan, Bono Giamboni (before 1292) uses offendere for “to strike with harm or injury”.^[5] GRADIT and Nocentini date the word to the second half of the 13th century.^[8][6]

Semantic evolution

The Latin verb meant first to strike against or bump into something, then to harm and to give offence.^[9][1] Italian took over the senses of harm: Brunetto Latini (before 1294) uses it for wounding the body, Dante (1304–1308) for violating a law or right, and the Imitazione di Cristo (15th century) for annoying someone.^[5] Dante's Quanta ignoranza è quella che v'offende! (“How much ignorance is it that harms you!”) still has the general sense of damage.^[10]

The old sense “to assail the enemy” survived in military language and lies behind offensiva, an attack, recorded from 1699 after the earlier guerra offensiva (1559).^[5][3] The pronominal offendersi, to take offence, appears in Enrico Caterino Davila in 1630, and the reciprocal sense “to insult each other” in 1891.^[5] In modern use the moral sense, to insult or hurt someone's feelings, is the main one, and offendere is a fundamental word of the language.^[8][10]

Timeline

• About 1200 – Uguccione da Lodi uses onfende, onfenduo.^[5]
• First half of the 13th century – the noun offesa is recorded.^[5][6]
• Before 1292 – Bono Giamboni uses offendere “to strike with harm”.^[5]
• Before 1294 – Brunetto Latini uses it for wounding.^[5]
• 1304–1308 – Dante uses it for violating a law or right.^[5]
• 15th century – the sense “to annoy” is recorded.^[5]
• 1559 – guerra offensiva “war of attack” is recorded.^[5]
• 1630 – offendersi “to take offence” in Davila.^[5]
• 1699 – offensiva “offensive” is recorded.^[5]
• 1891 – the reciprocal offendersi “to insult each other”.^[5]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive) To offend or insult: to wound someone's dignity or honour by words or deeds: Con quella battuta hai offeso tutti i presenti.^[8][4][11]
2. (transitive) To hurt someone's feelings or pride: Rifiutando il suo regalo lo offenderesti.^[8][4]
3. (transitive) To violate a moral value, a law or a principle; to clash with good taste or common sense.^[8][4][11]
4. (transitive) To injure a part of the body: La lama non gli ha offeso i tendini.^[8][4][11]
5. (transitive) To be unpleasant to one of the senses: Quel rumore offende l'udito.^[8][4]
6. (transitive, obsolete) To attack, assail: offendere le schiere avversarie.^[3]
7. (offendersi, pronominal) To take offence: Non offenderti, scherzavo.^[3][11]
8. (offendersi, reciprocal) To insult each other.^[3][11]

Word family

• offesa
• offeso
• offensivo
• offensiva
• offensore
• controffensiva
• offendibile
• offenditore

Related words

• difendere
• Latin offendō
• English offend

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 11, 821
3. ^ a b c d e Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
4. ^ a b c d e f Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
6. ^ a b c d e f Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
7. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
8. ^ a b c d e f g De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
9. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ a b Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
11. ^ a b c d e Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse